资料：Britain is facing a “crisis of fatherlessness” in which almost half of all children born today will not be living with both parents by the time they are 15, the new chief executive of the thinktank founded by Iain Duncan Smith has warned.

Andy Cook, who runs the Centre for Social Justice, which is chaired by the former cabinet minister, argued that regular contact with a father figure reduced criminal behavior in children and boosted cognitive skills including reasoning and language development.

Cook claimed there was too much of a “throwaway culture” to parenting, adding: “Over the last 40 years, the meteoric rise in family breakdown has blighted （损害） the lives of the poorest children the most. The relationship children have with their fathers affects their self-esteem, how well they do at school, even whether they are able to form happy, long-lasting relationships as adults.”

Cook said it was inevitable that relationships would not always work out, but argued that a culture shift could reduce the prevalence of family breakdown, and stressed the importance of parenting once couples had separated.“We need a societal shift in perspective from regarding fathers as a dispensable extra to recognizing their value as a crucial pillar in a child’s life.” he said.

Cook argued policy ought to be focused on longer-term thinking, and emphasizing the potential impact on children of troubled relationships, stressing the disproportionate effect on the poorest. His thinktank’s figures show that by the age of five 48% of children in low-income families are not living with both parents, compared with 16% of children in middle-to higher-income families.

He said his work would also focus on four other factors that contributed to poverty: educational failure, worklessness, problem debt and addiction. Looking only at income levels skewed policy, he added. Despite controversy in the education sector about the growth of grammar schools, Cook argued that there was evidence they could be successful if headteachers tried to find the most talented children from poorer families.

The former chief executive of the Centre for Social Justice, Christian Guy, who became the PM's poverty adviser, said the hope of the previous strategy was to “start a parenting revolution——for too long politicians looked away as family instability and poor child development blighted lives in the poorest neighbourhoods”.“Parents want what's best for their children, but great advice tends to be the preserve of the better off. This has to change if we want to see children starting school ready to lead to communicate and forming healthy relationships”.

It is widely believed that fathers______.

• A.tend to overlook the importance of parenting
• B.help to prevent children from committing a crime
• C.are not indispensable in the growth of their children
• D.improve kids’development of cognitive skills